


I Couldn't Love You

by MythologyPastry



Series: Hanahaki: Overwatch [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Background Relationships, Blackwatch Era, Blackwatch Jesse McCree, Blackwatch Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Hanahaki Disease, Heavy Angst, Human Experimentation, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Memory Alteration, Minor Character Death, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Post-Fall of Overwatch, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, Sad Ending, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unrequited Love, hanahaki, just a note, not in the same series as my other widowreaper works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 09:43:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12791877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MythologyPastry/pseuds/MythologyPastry
Summary: Gabriel Reyes turns to Moira O'Deorain for a desperate surgery with questionable results.





	I Couldn't Love You

**Author's Note:**

> Hanahaki disease is a fake disease where flowers grow around a person's heart and lungs in the case of unrequited love. There are two solutions, either have the feelings reciprocated, or have surgery only for those feelings to disappear.

Days before his operation, Gabriel Reyes is in a hotel in Malaysia and going through his phone. He sends McCree a message telling him that their mission in Australia went well and commends him on his quick thinking. While the kid might be a pain at time, and while Gabriel might not say it often, McCree is always excellent to work with. It's the attitude after the missions that bother him, and when McCree sends him a flirty goodnight, Reyes groans. That kid is going to be the death of him one day. He goes to shut off his phone, but Gérard Lacroix sends him a link right before his fingers touch the button. He rubs the sleep from his eyes and opens the link with a yawn.

 

Oh.

 

It's a news article about Amélie. She received a ballet award just hours ago, and the picture of her holding the medal is front and center. If it weren't for the sweat slicked hair sticking to her forehead and the tired happiness in her eyes, Reyes could have sworn she had prepared for her role. A two hour long show, an adaption of the Little Mermaid. He scans through the comments. They say watching her was divine, that she stole the show with her presence alone.

 

He understands where they're coming from.

 

She's beautiful, in a way that even he can't fully grasp. It's her determination and her concentration that takes his breath away. How Gérard can even stand to be around her, Reyes can't comprehend. Amélie's dangerous like that. Someone who can sneak up on you, take everything, and make you ask for more.

 

And with that thought, Reyes tosses his phone off the bed and lays in the dark to think. It isn't extremely accurate to describe her like that, he realizes with a pang of frustration. There is nothing about that woman that could actually kill him. She simply focuses on what matters, giving nothing else any thought. And that is what's cruel. Reyes wants to be more, wants to be important to her.

 

He snorts. She's only met him a few times. Still, here he is, thinking about her like some teenage crush.

 

But it's more than that. They both have drive. He's heard the rumors, watched Gérard dance around their flames. She ruins her competition before they hit the stage. The attacks aren't physical, but they work just as well as any of Reyes' bullets. God, he thinks that might just make her more attractive. He wants to watch her succeed, not from the sidelines while Gérard ignores her in favor of Talon gossip.

 

They both take what they want, even if it means hurting others to do so.

 

Gabriel rubs at his beard. It's too late to think about something that will never matter.

 

* * *

 

 

In the morning, he tells Gérard to give Amélie his congratulations and doesn't look at his phone for the rest of the day while he returns to Headquarters. No one is to know what he was doing in Australia, so when he returns, he avoids Ana's inquisitive stares. With each passing month, she's grown more suspicious of Blackwatch, and he can't blame her. He's seen what Moira keeps away from prying eyes.

 

* * *

 

"I hear you enjoyed my performance," Amélie says confidently, the sound of her heels ringing in his ears. She's bumped into him on the streets of Zürich, and they walk into Headquarters together. Her shoulders barely rub at his, and with every touch, his heart plays a thousand drums.

 

Inhala y exhala. He repeats it over and over in his brain, because all his instincts are telling him to talk to her as if Gérard wasn't in the way. So, after a moment of consideration, he decides to talk to her like he would Ana. A nice and truthful statement from a more carefree standpoint. "I didn't get to see it," he slowly admits. "There was a mission. Gérard had to tell me after."

 

Her smile doesn't crack, but her questioning eyes meet his. He lets out a curse. "I would have watched it had I known."

 

For the sweetest yet briefest moment, Amélie grins. "Why, Reyes, somehow that sounds like affection." And with that, they part with silence through the various sections of the Headquarters.

 

Yes, he thinks. It is affection. Reyes looks back once and catches sight of her bag as she goes through the entrance to the canteen. She's already gone. He doesn't doubt that she never took the time to look back. Why would she? There's nothing more for her to know. He cares for her, simple as that.

 

He's been holding his breath, and he exhales shakily before going to find McCree. He needs a sparring buddy, someone who won't turn him down.

 

* * *

 

 

He watches her performance that night, buying it off some kid from Nice. The quality is awful, but at least she's in sight at all times. There are moments, many moments, where her movements leave him breathless, and he shifts with anxiety as her partner twirls her around like she's a toy. It's ridiculous. He saw her today, knows she's okay, but he can't help feeling scared when she seems moments away from injury.

 

He coughs as he gets ready for bed. It's annoying, an itch that doesn't go away. At this rate, he's going to have to see Angela or Moira.

 

* * *

 

 

It is midnight when he coughs up red petals. It is minutes after midnight when he bangs on Moira's door.

 

* * *

 

 

She tells him it won't hurt. He won't be able to go on missions for two weeks after, but it will be an easy recovery.

 

"It will be nothing compared to now, I am sure." She says it so casually that he wants to punch her. What does she know about it? How can she tell him that when Amélie is out there, sleeping alongside Gérard instead of him? "Once you finish the paperwork, I'll alert Overwatch."

 

He groans. "Aren't you bound by the Hippocratic Oath? Do you even need my permission?"

 

Moira doesn't answer him at first, preferring to stare at her computer with a look of boredom. "There's another cure, if you weren't listening. I can't force you into a surgery that could be avoided." Her mocking eyes meet his. "But I suppose that method would take a lot of guts."

 

God, does he hate this woman sometimes.

 

* * *

 

 

There are complications, like most of these surgeries. She had nicked something on her way in and gave him an untested medicine in her hurry. "It was in your forms," she says. "I'm sorry." She isn't.

 

They practice with its remnants from time to time, the dark wisps coming off his fingers in droves. They're beautiful and remind him of something he can't quite place.

 

He's luckier than most in that he doesn't fully remember what happened before the surgery. Moira tells him that sometimes the flowers come back, and he laughs. "Who could be that important that my body would fuck up twice?"

 

She ignores him. "A lot of times the people who remember drive themselves crazy trying to recreate what they felt prior, but that's dangerous." Right before kicking him out of her office, she says, "I won't be fixing you again."

 

"I won't be needing it again!"

 

* * *

 

 

Gérard is dead, but for some reason all Reyes can feel is bittersweet joy. He doesn't get it, but he tries not to focus on it too hard. With Gérard gone, there isn't anyone left to talk him out of challenging Morrison.

 

And months later, there is no more Reyes. Moira has succeeded in her experiments. She's found a way to cheat death.

 

* * *

 

 

When Talon introduces Reaper to Widowmaker, all he can think about is how lovely her hair is. Regardless of blue skin and unhealthily yellow irises, the black locks are stunning.

 

His heart hurts. He stops looking.

 

* * *

 

 

In the years following the collapse of Overwatch, Reaper finds a document hidden within Moira's lab. It contains information concerning a Hanahaki surgery. He can't help but read through it. There's a part of him that wants it to be his file, to tell him what exactly Moira gave him that night.

 

The papers are worn. Worn by blood and tears, rips and annotations.

 

The papers aren't just Moira's, they're about Moira. She had the surgery two years before him, and he lets a finger drift over the most ruined part of the document. Angela Ziegler's signature is almost unrecognizable with the frantic pen scratches around it.

 

The flowers can come back, and in the comment section, Mercy noted that Moira had this surgery twice within Overwatch. There's a scribble added beside it:

 

Thrice.

 

* * *

 

 

The next time Reaper stumbles upon McCree, it isn't literal. It's a document shoved into his face by Moira, sad and angry Moira, who kicked him out of her labs for finding her file.

 

McCree had surgery for Hanahaki the day after the investigation proved Gabriel Reyes was at fault for destroying Overwatch.

 

Reaper fades into dust, rushing away from Moira and the truth.

 

* * *

 

 

Widowmaker is always welcome by his side. They understand each other through shared ambition.

 

They both have drive. They've taken what they wanted and left all those they've hurt behind.


End file.
